In April 2011, the management team at Expatica Communications B.V. was reviewing the progress of the company and the opportunities for future growth. The management team had to take stock: the external environment was rapidly changing, and threats from competitors were on the rise. Expatica had been founded 11 years earlier to provide English-language information and news to the expatriate community in Europe, delivering its services primarily over the Internet. One of the central issues Expatica faced was how to make its core business model effective across multiple markets. Recent launches of the online platform in new countries were not as successful as hoped and the performance of traditional “bricks and mortar” offerings was also mixed. The company had made tremendous progress over the years but needed to re-evaluate its position and decide which new opportunities for growth, if any, should be pursued.

Learning Objective:

To explore the issues of international strategy and organization in an entrepreneurial “born-global” e-business firm.

To analyze the tensions and interrelationships between internationalization and product development in a born-global firm.